Today’s big news is Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. What is fascinating is the logic for the deal. This is not a deal driven by customers or operating synergies – it is all about Motorola’s patents. The give-away is the final paragraph of Google’s announcement: “We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding …
The big story yesterday was the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. It was only 6 years ago that eBay bought Skype for $ 2.6 billion. I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the publicly announced rationales for the deals. First, here is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday: “Skype is …
“There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way …